


Shatter Together

by thepartyresponsible



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Hook-Up, M/M, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 20:14:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13911339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepartyresponsible/pseuds/thepartyresponsible
Summary: “Are you telling me,” Jason says, slowly, “that you’re some kind of charity case hitman? You work on a sliding scale? What the hell?”“I just figure,” he says, hands in the pockets of his stupid purple hoodie, “that a lot of people need someone killed. And the more someone’ll pay to have it done, the less those people usually deserve to die. So, two hundred’s fine. I eat, you know? What else do I need?”





	Shatter Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mythaeology](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythaeology/gifts).



> So, mythaeology tagged me [in a post](http://mythaeological.tumblr.com/post/171495760657/bipolarbuckyy-flashback-to-the-most-aggressively) on tumblr, and then I wrote this. 
> 
> This takes place after Clint leaves the circus but before he joins SHIELD. Jason's been back in Gotham for a couple years. And...those are all the details you need. At least I hope they are, because those are all the details I have.
> 
> Title taken from "Shatter Together" by My Jerusalem.

The shot, when it comes, is a beautiful thing. The arrow punches through a small opening in the body armor, burrowing into the gap bared only when the assassin reaches behind him, and then the man sent to kill Bruce Wayne is dead, and Jason’s just standing on the rooftop, like an asshole, because he’d seen that opening and hadn’t taken it.

One assassin killing another feels like poetry to Jason, but he can’t imagine it would sit well with Bruce. That’s the reason he goes after the archer, to warn him about Batman and his ludicrous faith in the rehabilitation capabilities of the criminal justice system.

                And also because someone just took a shot with a bow that he wouldn’t risk with a gun, and he’s interested in that.

                The archer makes it easy. He doesn’t even flee the scene. He does the _opposite_. He wanders down to the alley and reclaims his arrow, boot pressed into the dead man’s side to hold the body down while he yanks the arrow free.

                “That a trophy?” Jason asks, stepping out onto the street, putting himself between the archer and the way out.

                The man stares at him. He’s young, _maybe_ twenty-one. His blonde hair is messy, cut cheap and fast and possibly by himself while drunk on a moving train, and his clothes are worn and bordering on ridiculous. He’s standing there, arrow in hand, wearing torn jeans, secondhand boots, and a dark purple hoodie, and he doesn’t look ashamed about any of it.

                “Sorry,” the man says, shifting. “What?”

                Jason nods toward the arrow in his hand. “Is that,” he repeats, “a trophy?”

                The archer considers him for a moment. Jason’s not wearing his mask. This wasn’t a Red Hood thing. This was just him, solving a problem for Bruce before Bruce managed to fuck it up, and so he’s standing there like any dumb civilian would, except he has his guns under his jacket and two hidden knives. Jason watches as the archer tracks every single one of his weapons before he wipes his arrow clean on his jeans and then tucks it into a quiver in the duffle bag he’s carrying.

                “They’re expensive,” the archer says, nodding toward his arrow. “Didn’t see any reason to waste it. Am I gonna need it for you?”

                “Probably not,” Jason says. “And why’re you worried about how expensive a fucking _arrow_ is? Just bill whoever paid you to kill that shithead.”

                The archer visibly relaxes when Jason says _shithead_ , and then he shrugs, mouth screwing up in a small little grimace. “She doesn’t have much money,” he says. “I mean, she gave me two hundred, and I think she had to sell plasma to do it.”

                Jason stares at him. “Two _hundred_?” He points at the dead body on the street. “Do you have any idea who the hell that guy is? The reward on him?”

                “Sure,” he says, “but that’s for a live capture. She wanted him dead. Figured he’d just get out again, come around to bother her. And she’s about ready to pop, you know? What if he comes after her after she’s had the kid? Be a fucking mess. This was easier.”

                Jason wonders if this is some kind of trap, if this is maybe the world’s single most bizarre honeypot mission, and he’s being lured in by someone designed to appeal to him. Jason squints at him, but the man just stares back, calm and collected on the surface and only a little wide-eyed and nervous under all that composure.

                “Are you telling me,” Jason says, slowly, “that you’re some kind of charity case hitman? You work on a sliding scale? What the hell?”

                “I just figure,” he says, hands in the pockets of his stupid purple hoodie, “that a lot of people need someone killed. And the more someone’ll pay to have it done, the less those people usually deserve to die. So, two hundred’s fine. I eat, you know? What else do I need?”

                “With aim like that, you could find better work. _Legal_ work. Well, government-sanctioned work.”

                “Right,” he says, frowning. “Because the fucking feds always pick the best targets. Because cops always shoot the right people. I’m not gonna let some dickhead in a suit tell me who deserves to die.”

                “Be less trouble for you,” Jason says, fighting a losing battle not to be charmed, “if you took a few of those jobs. Could live off that for years, if you take the right ones.”

                “I live just fine,” the archer says, defiant in his patched-up jeans and scuffed boots. He narrows his eyes at Jason. “Now, are you gonna be some kind of asshole about this, or can we go about our days?”

                Jason grins at him. He can’t help it. Everyone in Gotham is so serious, so polished and poisonous and deadly. He’s always preferred rougher edges. “I’m Jason,” he says, because he can. Because this guy will be gone by morning, so what’s it matter? “Let me buy you a drink.”

                The archer blinks at him and then frowns, like he thinks it’s some kind of joke. He stares at Jason for a while and then slowly, warily, he shrugs. “I’m Clint,” he says. “Sure.”

 

 

 

Jason takes him to his favorite bar, in his favorite part of town. It’s a slow night, a weekday toward the end of the month, so there’s not even anyone getting a blowjob or a beating in the side-alley when they walk in.

 “Nice place,” Clint says, like the tension doesn’t immediately bleed out of his shoulders when they step inside. Like he doesn’t belong here, just as much as Jason does, in this ratty, shitty, dirty part of town. “You bring all your dates here?”

                He’s being sarcastic, or he isn’t. He’s interested, or he’s not. It’s tough to get a read on him, and that’s just another thing that Jason likes about him.

                “Only the ones I’m trying to impress,” Jason says, as he hands him the beer he promised.

                There’s a dart board, and they play for a while, but Clint starts showing off by landing every single one of his darts a centimeter or so to the right of Jason’s, and Jason abruptly remembers that he’s always been a shitty loser. They adjourn to the bar, where things stay friendlier.

                Clint drinks slow, nursing every beer for a half hour or more. He’s also nervous, but not about Jason. They have a bit of a showdown, when they take a booth and both angle for the seat against the wall. Clint slides in first, but then just shuffles over, lets Jason pin him into the corner so they can both sit, watching the door. So, that’s how Jason knows that it’s not him Clint’s worried about; it’s everyone else.

                Jason is the most dangerous thing in this bar. And then, behind him at a distance Jason can’t quite call yet, there’s Clint. And then, trailing along behind both of them, there’s everyone else.

                But every time some drunk raises his voice, Clint’s eyes flick that way and his hands tighten into fists, like he thinks someone’s going to go through Jason to fight him.

                Which is bullshit. Jason wouldn’t let anyone in this bar go through him to get to anyone. Hell, he wouldn’t let anyone in this bar go through him to get to the salt shaker.

                “I’m getting another beer,” Jason says, because his is empty. “You want one?”

                “No,” Clint says, sliding out of the booth behind him. He gets closer than he needs to. This whole night, Jason’s been trying to figure out if Clint’s hitting on him or just doesn’t understand personal space. “I’m gonna go settle up.”

                Jason figures he means he’s going to pay his tab, but Clint turns, heading off toward the pool tables instead. He loses all his edges as he walks over, slouches down in his hoodie and wipes all that careful awareness off his face. By the time he reaches the pool tables, he looks like some lost suburban kid, abandoned by his fraternity brothers in a bad part of town and just drunk enough to feel brave.

Jason buys himself another beer, pays Clint’s tab, and then stays at the bar, positioned so he has a good view of Clint, throwing his first game with such flair and dedication that Jason grins into his beer.

                Jason doesn’t get this guy. He has a skill that could make him rich, and he’s recycling arrows because they’re expensive and hustling pool to pay for his bar tab. He wonders if he’s got some kind of expensive habit, drugs or gambling or women or men, but he’s too healthy for the first, too cautious for the second, and hasn’t even looked at any of the reasonably attractive people in this bar.

                Well, except for Jason. But he hasn’t _looked_ at Jason. Not that Jason’s noticed, anyway. And Jason’s been trying to catch him doing it.

                “Who’s the guy?” The bartender asks, mouth flat, eyebrows up, and Jason really should stop coming around here. It’s not good, when people know enough about your normal to recognize its absence. But he likes this place.

                “Found him in an alley,” Jason says. “Two hundred for the night.”

                The man rolls his eyes and gives Clint another long, assessing look. “Doesn’t look like your kind of trouble,” he says, finally.

                Jason feels oddly defensive. He wants to tell the bartender that Clint just dropped one of INTERPOL’s most wanted with a fucking bow, but he can see how that might lead to unnecessary hysterics. So, instead, he just smirks. “What,” he says, “would you know about my kind of trouble?”

                “Can’t even see any tattoos from here,” the bartender says. “And he’s not hiding any guns under pants like that. Guess there might be one under his sweater.”

                “Huh.” Jason really, really needs to find another bar. No matter how much he likes this place, or how flattering the staff is. “You _do_ know my kind of trouble.”

                “Speaking of,” the bartender says, eyes suddenly narrowing. He gives Jason a pointed look. “Go take care of that, would you? I’m busy.”

                “Take care of what?” Jason says, but he’s already turning. Over by the pool tables, someone’s got Clint’s pinned to the wall by his throat. “Aw, shit,” he says.

                By the time Jason gets over there, the situation is already deescalating. Clint’s bug-eyed and hunched-in, looks scared, keeps saying things like _I’m sorry_ and _I just needed the money, man_ and Jason would buy it, maybe, but Clint’s hands are perfectly steady as he expertly picks the man’s pocket, takes his cash, and then puts the wallet back where he found it.

                “Hey,” Jason says, grabbing the nearest pool cue as he gets close. “You wanna back off now, or fight about it first?”

                The man turns on Jason, hand still curled up in Clint’s stupid purple hoodie, and scowls. He’s big, and mean, and looks like he’s used to those things mattering. Jason flashes so many Goddamn teeth he practically unhinges his jaw for it. He can’t help it. These are his favorite fights.

                “Your friend,” the man says, giving Clint a little shake, “is a fucking cheat.”

                “Yeah, if you think he’s bad about pool,” Jason says, still grinning, “wait til you see how I fight. You got a bad knee there on the left. Let’s even you out.”

                “Take it outside!” The bartender yells from behind the bar. “Don’t make another mess in here. The City can clean it up this time.”

                “Hey,” Clint says, “it’s fine. It was my fault. Let’s just go.”

                Jason frowns, disappointed, and the man swings Clint around by his sweatshirt, throws him at Jason with enough force that Jason has to drop the pool cue into one hand, catch Clint with the other. “You heard him,” the man says. “Get the fuck out.”

                “Oh, sweetheart,” Jason says, “please tell me you’re gonna do something about it if I don’t.”

                “ _Outside_!” The bartender yells again, and, this time, he’s loud enough that he probably means it. “I’m not calling the fucking cops. Go outside where I don’t have to report shit.”

                “I’m going,” Clint says, sliding away from Jason, making a beeline for the bar with the asshole’s cash in his hand, and Jason wants to stay, wants this fight, but he wants to follow Clint more.

                Jason considers the man for another moment, thinks about how good it would feel, taking him apart, prying all that arrogance and swagger out of him and feeding it back to him as pain and humiliation, lasting damage that’ll ache every Goddamn day for the next six months. Jason likes the tough fights, the hard ones, the ones he barely survives, but there’s always been something beautiful about these quick, mean brawls behind bars, where he crunches freshly-cracked teeth with his boots on his way back up the alley.

                “You,” he says, shaking his head, “are so fucking lucky.”

                “Go check on your boyfriend,” the man sneers at him. “I think he’s gonna cry.”

                “Next time I see you,” Jason says, laying the pool cue back down on the table, “I’m gonna remind you that you said that.”

                He rolls his eyes, takes a step toward Jason that’s probably supposed to be intimidating. “About your boyfriend?”

                “No, asshole.” Jason moves toward him, fast, slams a right hook into the soft tissue below his ribs. The man doubles over, and Jason grabs the back of his neck, cracks his head against the edge of the pool table. “About _crying_ ,” he says, and drops him.

                “ _Hey_ ,” the bartender says, sounding distinctly displeased.

                “No blood,” Jason says, holding his hands up. “No mess. Concussions don’t bleed externally.”

                “Goddamn it.” The bartender rolls his eyes, and gestures toward the door. “ _Out_.”

                “Where’d he go?” Jason asks, looking for Clint, who has become unhelpfully invisible.

                “That way,” the bartender says, pointing again toward the door. “So _go_.”

                “Sure,” Jason waves and heads that way, walking past a dozen or so men and women who are watching the situation unfold with a sort of relaxed, professional curiosity that Jason finds begrudgingly endearing. “See you next week.”

                Outside, Clint’s leaning against the wall, smoking. He gives Jason a sharp, calculating look. “Didn’t need you to do that,” he says, when Jason slouches beside him, tips his face up into the watery light of a half-dead streetlamp.

                “Fight that guy?” Jason shrugs. “That was just for fun.”

                “Didn’t need you to cover my tab,” he corrects. He frowns, staring up at nothing, or maybe gauging the distance to the fire escape. “I know you didn’t fight that guy for me.”

                “Would have,” Jason says, off-hand. “You want me to?”

                Clint’s eyes drop to Jason’s face. He assesses him slowly, thoroughly. Jason feels like he’s being stared at through crosshairs, and it gives him goosebumps, a little, in what is maybe the best possible way.

                _Now_ Clint’s looking at him.

                “You hitting on me?” There’s no real weight to the way he asks it. It sounds like a casual question between strangers. _Is it raining outside? You hear about the Knights?_ It sounds like he’s just gathering data.

                “Yeah,” Jason says. He hasn’t been. But he thinks he might like to start.

                “Okay,” Clint says, with a nod. “You got a place?”

                Jason’s thrown by that, by how uncomplicated it is. It feels, again, like some kind of trap, set just for him.

                “You gonna try to kill me?” Jason asks, as he steps away from the wall.

                Clint smiles at him, and something kicks in his eyes, like sparks off a fire, and Jason thinks maybe all that easy appeal, that casual acceptance is a mask for genuine interest. He thinks, if Clint didn’t want to be around, he’d have disappeared seven times over by now.

                He thinks it’s shitty, that someone taught Clint to mask interest with indifference, but he doesn’t mind so much, now that he knows it isn’t real.

                “Depends, I guess,” Clint says, still smiling. “Maybe if the sex is real bad.”

               

 

 

                Turns out, under all that skin-deep apathy, all that carefully constructed calm, Clint’s _sweet_. Jason hopes like hell he doesn’t do this often, because his cover shakes apart in five minutes, leaves him just this eager, endlessly gratifying mess of lean muscles and clever mouth and bright blue eyes. He won’t stop giving up compliments, keeps saying _fuck_ over and over, like he can't make himself stop.

                “Jesus,” Jason says, when they’re stretched out in bed, and Jason’s been spending maybe a bit too much time licking and biting his way down all the rolling muscles of his chest and stomach. “You okay? You still breathing?”

                “Sorry,” he heaves out, throwing an arm over his face. “Been awhile.”

                “ _Sorry_ ,” Jason repeats, incredulous.

                Clint bites down hard on his lower lip, like he thinks he needs to muzzle himself. Jason’s insulted. He’s been watching a blush work its way across Clint’s face and down almost to his chest, and it’s been nice, kind of flattering, but the tension in his jaw now, the way he’s hiding, saps some of the sweetness out of the moment.

                Jason sighs, pulling back a little, and Clint’s whole damn body tenses up.

                There’s probably a gentle way to reassure him. But Jason doesn’t have much experience with gentle; he can’t find his way forward on that route.

                So he gets his mouth around his dick, instead, and Clint jerks halfway off the bed, a punched-out cry fighting its way out of him. “Fuck,” Clint breathes out, sounds halfway to broken already. “ _Fuck_.”

                Clint reaches for him, fingers running smoothly across his face and then settling in his hair, and he’s much better at gentle than Jason is. He’s so careful with him that Jason has to coax him out of it, tease him until all that gentleness wears out.

                And still, after all that, he’s just as eager. The sweetness just takes another form. Clint can’t seem to _stop_ , won’t shut up about how he feels, how _Jason_ feels, keeps reaching for him every time Jason thinks they’re done. Jason’s exhausted by the time Clint finally seems like he can keep his hands to himself, and Jason can’t remember the last time he picked up any kind of civilian that wore him out, even one who does charity kills for petty cash.

                He’s on his back, catching his breath, trying to pull his brain back together. Clint’s been sprawled out beside him, half on top of him, breathing hard into the crook of Jason’s neck, and then, suddenly, he’s gone. He rolls up, drops his legs off the side of the bed, and rubs at his face, finger-combs his hair into some very vague approximation of orderly.

                “Um,” Clint says, voice gone low and slightly hoarse. He’s shy now, for the first time since they made it through Jason’s door. He clears his throat, stares at his feet. That blush is coming back.

                Jason drags himself up onto one elbow, trying to get a read on the weird body language. Clint’s turned his back on him, isn’t looking at him. Jason knows what it looks like, when someone’s done and already out the door and halfway home in their head, and it doesn’t look quite like this.

                Jason feels like maybe he should tell him that if he doesn’t want to feel awkward after, he shouldn’t let himself get so vulnerable during. But, if he thinks about it, he can see how maybe the whole evening at the bar, all those casual mannerisms, represented Clint’s best try at keeping his walls up.

                _Been awhile_ , he thinks. And he can damn sure see why.

                Whatever walls Clint built, he’s just got the one set. Make your way past that, and you’re in. It’s so different from Gotham, where every person Jason knows is some kind of labyrinth, walls ringing walls, circling dead ends that lead to nowhere.  

                Clint looks some strange, determined kind of miserable as he starts fishing around on the floor for his clothes.

                Jason’s an asshole, almost always, to almost everyone. But he isn’t cruel to people who don’t deserve it. At least, he does his best not to be. “Leaving?”

                Clint doesn’t look back, but his hands stall out, wrapped up in the shirt that somehow got turned inside out earlier. “I figured,” he says, to the shirt. “You’ve got shit to do, right?” He gestures across the room, right where Jason’s mask is sitting.

                Jason had really hoped Clint wouldn’t see that. He’d done his best to distract him, and he’d seemed happy to be distracted. But he’s starting to understand that there isn’t much Clint misses, except maybe any signal that he’s welcome somewhere.

                “Not tonight,” Jason says. “You should stay.”

                Clint turns to look at him, and Jason’s pretty sure he didn’t do anything to deserve the flat look of suspicion he gets, so he figures that’s just another one of Clint’s shittier coping mechanisms. “Yeah?” Clint says slowly. “You wouldn’t mind?”

                Jason rolls his eyes and goes to sit beside him. Clint’s tense, but he leans toward him when Jason gets close. So it’s not that Clint doesn’t _know_ he needs to hide how sweet he is, how hungry he is for any kind of affection. It’s that he tries, and can’t. It’s been too long, maybe, or he needs it too much.

                The world is all kinds of shitty, and Jason knows that. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t wish, sometimes, that it were better.

                Jason’s not good at gentle. He learned better than Clint how dangerous it is. He doesn’t need it; he doesn’t even know what the hell to do it with. But he’s not a monster or a robot, not the Joker or Bruce Wayne.

                He curls a careful hand through that messy blonde hair, pulls Clint toward him and kisses him, as sweet as he knows how, doesn’t even get his teeth into that soft lower lip. “C’mon,” he says. Clint’s pressed into him, their bodies together from shoulder to hip, and he’s got an unsteady look in his eyes, hopeful and wary all at once.

                “Shower,” Jason says. “Then food, then bed.” He tugs him up, and Clint follows. There’s no hesitation him in at all.

                Someone, Jason thinks, tried to make him dangerous. And when that didn’t work, when all that danger didn’t manifest in a useful way, they cut him loose, hacked him apart in the process.

                Jason figures he’ll be gone by morning. Or maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll stay for a few days, a week, and then something will scare or hurt him, and he’ll disappear.

                Jason knows exactly how well it works out, when one broken thing tries to fix another. But Talia and Bruce set the bar pretty low. All Jason has to do is not leave Clint worse off than how he found him.

                Clint follows him into the shower, too close, too eager, too sweet, starved for every scrap of affection he gets.  Jason pushes back, shoves him into the wall, gets his teeth into his shoulder and bites down hard enough to bruise.

                Jason doesn’t know gentle well enough to fake it. All he has to offer is a kind of benevolent, leashed aggression. But Clint arches into him, can’t stop touching him, keeps pulling him closer. So that’s good enough, in the end. It seems like no one ever taught Clint the difference anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me [on tumblr](https://thepartyresponsible.tumblr.com/) for crow gifs and fic updates.


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